We’d barely made it past the “Welcome to Llandudno” sign when the satnav decided the steep lane up to Hilltops was actually a footpath. Cue a three-point turn that became a six-point turn, a small queue of locals on the pavement, and me apologising through the window while my partner tried not to laugh. By the time we finally crunched onto the gravel at the top, cheeks burning, the cottage itself felt like a reward: whitewashed walls, a little slate porch, and that first proper view of the sweep of the bay below.

I’d only just heaved the last bag inside when a voice called up from the lane. “You the new ones, then?” It belonged to a wiry chap in a flat cap who introduced himself as Dai the post. He’d come to drop off a parcel for the neighbour and stayed for a chat, leaning on the gate as if he had all afternoon. Within minutes I’d learnt that the tide times were printed on a blackboard outside the lifeboat station, that the best chips came from the van that parks by Happy Valley on Thursdays, and that the seagulls round here had “university degrees in thieving.” I must have looked doubtful, because he promptly pointed to a fresh-looking tear in our supermarket bag and winked.

Later, while we were unpacking milk into the little fridge, there was a gentle knock. This time it was Mrs Probert from two doors down, carrying a Tupperware of Welsh cakes “just in case you hadn’t found the shop yet.” She stayed long enough to ask whether we’d noticed the way the evening light hits the Great Orme, and to tell us that her Frank used to race pigeons from the same stretch of beach we could see from the bedroom window. Her stories meandered like the tide, full of names I’d never heard and punchlines that arrived a beat late, but I found myself listening properly, the way you do when someone offers you a slice of their ordinary life.

By the time we wandered down for fish and chips, half the village seemed to know we were staying at Hilltops. The woman behind the counter asked if we’d met the cat yet—the one that sits on the bench outside the cottage every morning as if it pays rent. We hadn’t, but by the next day we had, and I caught myself giving it an official welcome as though that were the proper thing to do.

It’s funny how a wrong turn and a couple of doorstep conversations can make a place feel less like somewhere you’re visiting and more like somewhere you’ve been expected. I keep thinking about Dai’s parting advice—“Don’t let the seagulls see you with anything worth having”—and wondering whether the real charm of Hilltops isn’t the view at all, but the fact that everyone else already knows the punchline.